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Castle Rock schools chief miffed over stimulus accounting of 'saved' teaching jobs
Saturday, November 7, 2009 7:28 PM PST
By Barbara LaBoe
Printable version
E-mail this articleCastle Rock Superintendent Susan Barker is so upset about how state and federal officials are counting teaching jobs as “saved” with stimulus dollars that she’s thinking of writing President Barack Obama.
State and federal figures released last week report that initial federal stimulus dollars “saved or retained” 24,000 teachers in Washington — including 36 in Castle Rock. Teaching positions make up the bulk of the 34,500 jobs listed as saved in Washington by the federal Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which oversees stimulus spending.
Problem is, Barker said, that’s just not true.
Barker called the federal board’s information a “misrepresentation of fact, and I know what we call that in my world.”
The state did use stimulus money to help pay teachers during the 2008-09 school year. And the federal money did help avoid more painful budget cuts elsewhere in state government. But the teachers had binding contracts and teachers never would have been cut during a school year, so saying the money saved those jobs is just plain misleading, Barker said.
It’s also unclear what the state would have cut without the stimulus dollars. It may have been other jobs, but it also could have been reductions in things like purchases or benefits. So it’s unknown how many non-teaching jobs were saved by using the stimulus money for class-size reduction and freeing up more of the state’s general fund dollars.
Washington, like most states, also used some of the stimulus money for the current school year. In that case about 4,000 K-12 jobs were saved, including teachers and support personnel, according to the state. (Barker said even that number seems high).
What has Barker upset involves the money used last school year. She’s happy the money was available and that it helped the state avoid further cuts elsewhere. But listing 24,000 jobs that never were in jeopardy just doesn’t sit right with her.
“It’s just wrong,” Barker said. “We did not ‘save’ the number of jobs that we had to report saving. We did not ‘retain’ those jobs. ... It’s highly inaccurate.”
“I didn’t think they’d be buying data to support their position,” Barker said Monday of the stimulus funding.
The state teaching figures were reported last week by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board as part of 650,000 jobs saved or retained nationwide by stimulus funding.
Officials with the board, based in Washington, D.C., said they’re not responsible for the veracity of the figures, they’re merely reporting the numbers reported to them by each state.
“This is a political argument ... it’s not our fight,” said Cheryl Arvidson, the board’s spokeswoman, referring further questions to the White House or Vice President’s Office. “We are obligated by law simply to post the Web site with the reports. We can’t change the reports, the agencies here in Washington can’t change the reports. The only entity that change the report are the recipients themselves.”
The governor’s office handled the federal reporting for Washington. And the state Office of the Superintendant of Public Instruction acknowledges the 24,000 number can be misleading, said spokesman Nathan Olson. OSPI, however, is not seeking a correction because officials reported the number the way federal officials required.
“The feds can report what they want to,” he said.
Barker, though, doesn’t think its right to have inaccurate information out there.
And state Sen. Joe Zarelli, R-Ridgefield, said he’s also concerned about how the numbers are being used. Zarelli is the state Senate Republican budget chief and has questioned the effectiveness of the stimulus payments.
“I think they’re trying to make it smell rosier than it does,” Zarelli said. “Those jobs would have been there regardless, and that’s the position the federal government and state has put themselves into, to make some connection however mysterious that (the stimulus package) actually created or saved jobs.”
“I’m disappointed in my government,” Barker said. “And for the first time in my life I’m thinking of writing the President.”
Quit Yer Bitchen wrote on Nov 7, 2009 5:51 AM:
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